


all new, faded for her

by cardinalrachelieu



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, F/M, a patchwork rewrite of their final conversation, and solas had been a little less wordy, if lavellan had been a little more observant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25125103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cardinalrachelieu/pseuds/cardinalrachelieu
Summary: Lavellan’s gaze locks onto the figure at the far end of the pathway. Shaved head. Arms clasped behind his back. His silhouette is strange—familiar but not. Armored. Gleaming like the lions that guard Halamshiral. Still, she’d recognize him anywhere.“Solas…”He turns, and the sight of him like this, whole and healthy andhere,steals her breath. It’s been two years. Two long, lonely years.Oh, how she’s missed him.---or,the final conversation, as i wish it had played out
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Solas
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	all new, faded for her

**Author's Note:**

> just finished playing DA:I for the first time and i romanced the egg. mistakes were made.
> 
> (and listen. this fic isn't anything special. i know that. i'm not here to pretend. i mostly scavenged the canon dialogue and pieced it together into something more... intense. trespasser is a goddamn GIFT of a dlc, but some bitches yearn for even MORE tormented angst. (it's me. i'm bitches.))

The eluvian goes dead behind Lavellan, trapping her here—wherever _here_ is—and her friends on the other side. Dull, tarnished bronze glints back at her, barely smooth enough to reflect her own form. It ripples, almost as though it’s mocking her. Dorian will find a way to reactivate it, he’s clever and works well under pressure, but she doesn’t have time to wait.

The Viddasala means to kill Solas.

_Solas._

Lavellan turns—and ducks on a gasp, arms coiled to protect her head, her throat. The blow never comes, though. Confused, she blinks. Stares at the chiseled grey mass. It’s a Qunari, but he’s… shaped from stone? And there are more like him, around her, on the ridge. Five, ten, twenty warriors—body after body after body, all encased in rock, or _made_ of rock, perhaps. What manner of magic could do such a thing?

“Ebasit kata. Itwa-ost.” That voice—she knows that voice. But… since when does Solas speak Qunari?

The Viddasala wastes no time shouting back, rage bleeding into her tone. “Maraas kata!”

Lavellan takes off at a sprint, following the sounds through the standing graveyard, bodies frozen in combat, mouths contorted in a final scream—for aid, for glory, for mercy. For their sake, she hopes they're truly dead.

“Your forces have failed,” Solas continues. “Leave now and tell the Qunari to trouble me no further.”

Lavellan stumbles around a pillar to see the Viddasala roar, raise her spear. Then, in the span of a heartbeat, the Ben-Hassrath leader is just another statue in this macabre garden. No bolt of energy, no staff arcing in attack. That sort of power… it shouldn’t be possible.

Lavellan’s gaze locks onto the figure at the far end of the pathway. Shaved head. Arms clasped behind his back. His silhouette is strange—familiar but not. Armored. Gleaming like the lions that guard Halamshiral. Still, she’d recognize him anywhere.

“Solas…” 

He turns, and the sight of him like this, whole and healthy and _here_ , steals her breath. It’s been two years. Two long, lonely years.

Oh, how she’s missed him.

The anchor burns on her palm, and she cries out. Hot, angry magic eats away her skin, her muscles, her bones. She’s dying, she realizes distantly, beneath the agony. She’s dying. It’s a cruel joke, for it to happen now, when she’s finally found her heart again.

At least they stopped the Qunari.

At least her friends are safe.

At least she got to see _him_ one last time.

Numbness steals over Lavellan’s arm, suffocating the anchor’s fury, and she almost chokes on the unexpected relief. When she refocuses her gaze on Solas, his eyes are glowing, bright as stars, cold as the great black in which such wonders hang.

“That should give us more time,” he says softly, lips quirking at the edges, eyes returning to their normal watery blue. “I suspect you have questions.”

He’s always been patient, but there’s an arrogance about him she doesn’t recognize, a casualness to his actions. Unfathomable power stirs within him and he wields it with a blink. The Qunari suspected him an agent of the Dread Wolf, but that’s not quite right. She knows it’s not. And yet, she asks anyway, hoping she’s wrong, hoping things aren’t as they seem. “You’re him, aren’t you? You’re Fen’Harel.”

A small tilt of his chin. A mixture of pride and regret knitting his brows.

“Tell me it’s not true.” It’s a useless plea, but she makes it all the same. “Tell me you’re not him.”

“I cannot do that.”

The ground tilts beneath her, and she can’t breathe. _She can’t breathe._ The sky is clear and her wounds are shallow and her mark is quiet but there’s a crushing weight inside her chest, expanding, taking. Heat creeps up her cheeks, toward her eyes. “The whole time?” she manages, swallowing down the tears. It’s a wonder she has any left to shed.

“Ir abelas, vhenan.” He reaches for her, to touch her in the same way he has dozens of times, a whisper of comfort in a world of ruin.

She rears back, and that dizzying overwhelm is gone, replaced by something vicious, something with teeth. “You’re _sorry_?” The words come out like a snarl. “You lied about _everything!_ ”

Solas drops his hand, and whatever other masks he now wears, shame jumps to the surface—briefly; there and gone before the emotion can take root. “What would you have had me say?” There’s no venom in the question, only exhaustion. “That I was the great adversary in your people’s mythology?”

“I would’ve had you _trust_ me.”

The blow lands, and for the first time since she’s known him, he’s rendered speechless, sorrow etched into each line of his ancient face. For some reason, that makes it worse. It means he cared. It means he still cares. 

She glares at him, unyielding. She’s earned this anger.

Solas holds her gaze a moment longer, then turns, takes a step toward the ledge. A once-grand fortress lays broken beneath them, towers crumbled, vines caressing the archways. “I was Solas first,” he says, each syllable measured but raw, and _huh._ So this is what honesty sounds like from him. It’s too little too late, but she listens anyway. “Fen’Harel came later… an insult I took as a badge of pride. ‘The Dread Wolf’ inspired hope in my friends and fear in my enemies. Not unlike ‘Inquisitor,’ I suppose.”

She’s not sure what hurts more, that he kept this from her or that he thought she would reject him if she’d known. “If you had just told me…”

“I nearly did.”

It takes her a moment to locate the thread he’s pulling on, but then the memory takes her. A cave in Crestwood, his lips pressed to hers—and the truth he'd promised, the way he'd stuttered, the fear in his eyes, like he was a cornered animal and she a hunter. “That day by the lake…” He acknowledges her guess with a nod, and she shakes her head. Her anger’s faded now, but misery is quick to take its place. “I loved you. Did you really think I wouldn’t have understood?”

“If you knew what must happen, you would not say that.”

She furrows her brow.

Solas's fingers ball and flex at his sides, and he drops his gaze. “Perhaps Arlathan was always destined to fall, but it should not have been by my hand.”

 _His_ hand? “Solas, you’re not making any sense.”

He rolls his shoulders, stares into the distance. There’s a weight to the movement, like the whole world is pressing down on his spine. “I sought to set my people free from slavery to would-be gods. I broke the chains of all who wished to join me. The false gods called me Fen’Harel, and when they finally went too far, I formed the Veil and banished them forever. But in freeing the elven people, I destroyed their world.”

She thinks of the fractured archivists in the library, the final words they witnessed. “Vir Dirthara…”

“And countless other marvels, all intrinsically tied to the Fade. They could not exist outside it. And neither could we.” So that’s why he spent so much time dreaming. It wasn’t for research, it was so he could return home, if only for a few hours.

“You mean this world and the Fade…”

“Were once one, yes. Until I separated them.”

 _Until I separated them._ She’s reeling at the thought of such power, the idea that _one person_ could create the Veil. The dwarves have tales of a great sundering that held back the sky; perhaps their stories were not as implausible as everyone liked to think.

“The legends are half-right,” Solas continues, weary. “We _were_ immortal. But it was not the arrival of humans that caused us to begin ageing.” He looks at her then, lets her see his burden in full. Unguarded, unfiltered. “It was me.”

“Solas…”

“My people fell for what I did to strike the Evanuris down, but still… some hope remains for restoration.”

“Restoration?” she asks. Of what? Arlathan? The elves? Didn’t he just state their existence wasn’t possible without— Lavellan tenses, eyes wide, mouth dry. “You mean to— to tear down the Veil? To let the Fade spill back into the world? Solas, that will—”

He cuts her off with a mournful gaze.

“You know,” she breathes, aching for him to deny it. “You know the consequences. And still you choose this?” He says nothing, but the way he averts his eyes is confirmation enough. After all they’ve been through, after everything they did to stop a power-drunk magister from killing the people of Thedas… “You’re no better than Corypheus.”

“I take no joy in what I must do,” he says, grim determination coloring his tone, “but the return of my people means the end of yours.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “No, I won’t accept that. There has to be another way.”

“Do you think I have not searched for an alternative?” he says gently, and she hates him for the compassion in his voice. He speaks of _genocide_ —of murdering thousands. _How_ can he be so calm? So unaffected? “It does not exist.”

“So you’re just going to destroy this world?”

“Not happily.”

She sets her jaw. "I’ll have to stop you.” The words sound more like a sob than a threat. Damn him. Damn him for all of it. And damn her for loving him, still, even now.

“I know you will try.”

“Solas, don’t do this. Don’t shut me out—”

“I walk the dinan’shiral. And the price is mine alone to pay.” His expression is a painful thing. “I would not have you see what I become.”

Her palm is resting on his cheek before she realizes what she’s doing, but it’s there now and he’s leaning into the touch and it’s like they’re back in Skyhold, it’s like nothing’s changed. “So step off the path.” She swallows, presses her forehead to his. “It’s not too late.” 

Solas’s eyes slip shut, and he wraps slender fingers around her wrist, holds her there, against him. One slow breath. Another. 

“Come back to me,” she begs.

His shoulders sag, and for a moment, she thinks she’s won. For a moment, she thinks he’s reconsidered. But then— 

“I’m sorry. You deserve better.” His voice breaks over the words, and he takes a step back, straightens his spine. Gutting her with her own blades would’ve been kinder. “But I _will_ save the elven people, even if it means this world must end.”

A flash of green erupts on her palm, piercing through the hazy numbness. She winces, more in shock than discomfort, but that will probably change soon if her current streak of luck is any predictor.

“The mark will eventually kill you,” he says. “Ultimately none but I could’ve borne it and lived. Drawing you here gave me the chance to save you. At least for now.”

“Why bother? I’ll die anyway when the Veil comes down.”

His gaze turns fierce. “I will not let that happen.”

“No, you don’t get to do that,” she barks, clutching her throbbing wrist. The tingling is getting worse—sharper—and the magic crackles hungrily, eager to consume the rest of her. She has half a mind to let it. “My life isn’t worth more than everyone else’s.”

“It is to me.”

The _nerve._ “You selfish—”

“Hate me if you must. I won’t see you suffer.”

She has to laugh at that. “Won’t see me suffer?” He’s a cancer. He’s a cancer ravaging her from the inside out. This tortured, graceful, flawed man. Can he truly not see that leaving her alive and alone is worse than letting her just die? Lavellan closes her eyes against a wave of pain, and clarity finds her: if her life is the price he refuses to pay, perhaps she can leverage it, perhaps she can still change his mind. She forces herself to look at him again. “You don’t need to destroy this world—its people. Our _friends_.” He flinches at that. Good. It means the man she loves isn't entirely lost. “I’ll prove it to you.”

“I would treasure the chance to be wrong once again.”

“Then let me help you— _ah!_ ” The anchor drops her to her knees, and Solas is there, supporting her as they lay sprawled in the dirt and the wreckage of what could’ve been. A scream hooks in her chest but she masters it, locks her eyes on him, only him. “Together we can—” 

“Not this time.”

She won’t hear it. She refuses. “Solas, var lath vir suledin.”

His throat works around a swallow. “I wish it could, vhenan.”

The anchor jolts and pulses, ripping a yell from her lungs, and she finally lets the tears fall, finally lets herself shatter. There is no point in holding anything back anymore.

Solas grips her left forearm, just below the elbow, and lifts his other hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “My love.” It sounds like _goodbye._

She wants to protest, wants to cry _wait_ or _stay_ or _please,_ but she can’t form words around the pain.

He draws her closer, eyes igniting with that cold fire, and presses his lips to hers. His magic burrows deep, down to her marrow, counteracting the anchor’s savagery. She kisses him back. Carves a place for herself in his memory. She won’t let him forget her. She won’t let this be the end of them.

Solas pulls away, and it’s like she’s staring at him from the bottom of an empty well. The world is thick and heavy; thick, and heavy, and dark. He eases her down, until she’s reclined on the overgrown stone.

“So… Sol…” She can’t get the rest of his name out. Blackness crowds her vision, and she tries to reach for him but her limbs won’t respond.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice echoing all around her, ringing and ringing in the pale light of a setting sun. “I cannot risk you following me.”

Her next attempt at his name is hardly more than a grunt, and her eyes drift shut against her will.

A hand at her cheek. Lips grazing her temple. He murmurs something she cannot hear, and then the dark takes her, deep, and warm, and dense _._

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with me on [tumblr](http://cardinalrachelieu.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
